Will the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election Be a Realigning Election?

In his classic book Dynamics of the Party System, James L. Sundquist developed a theory of how party alignments change around new issues. As a winner-take-all system, (also called “first past the post” or FPTP), the U.S. is hard-wired to have only two dominant parties at a time. However, one party can disappear, as did the Whigs when slavery realigned the party system before the Civil War. Alternately, labels and some supporters of the existing parties can remain, but along a new line of separation on a key issue, which Sundquist calls cleavage. For example, the Civil Rights Movement accelerated a shift in the party alignment, with African-Americans and white liberals lining up solidly behind the Democrats instead of being split as before, and white Southerners defecting to the Republican Party.

Capacity to Provoke ResistanceHere, the case for either Sanders or Trump being agents of realignment is less clear. As Sundquist notes, “The strength and determination of the resistance depend directly, however, not on the grievance but on the remedy proposed.” Will voters warm en masse to Sanders’ democratic-socialist policies including a tax on financial transactions to pay for his proposals? On the other hand, outside the hot-button issue of immigration, Trump’s policy positions are non-ideological and hard to nail down.

LeadershipSundquist writes that existing party leaders can head off realignment if they “have the skill and motivation to handle the issue in a way that will check the growth of the polar blocs, and if the issue is the kind that allows such handling…

Republicans appear to be in more disarray. With a handful of exceptions, most Republican leaders have no intention of helping Trump if he wins the nomination. The conservative standard-bearing National Review magazine dedicated an entire issue to denouncing Trump.

Trump’s positions on immigration and Islam are more extreme, but not on the opposite side of most Republicans. Yet Trump also supports bank and auto-industry bailouts, a massively expensive public-works project building a wall along the border between the United States and Mexico (nearly 2000 miles), national health insurance, and a host of other expensive government programs and interventions in the market that could hardly be called conservative. Meanwhile, he ignores other conservative hot-button issues like abortion rights.

In short, so far the Republican Party has not been successful at co-opting Trump’s issues and his supporters.

Division of the Polar Forces Between PartiesDemocrats are decidedly more pro-immigrant than Republicans. However, there is a minority in each party that disagrees—most notably, 31 percent of Republicans believe immigrants make society better, while, on another dimension, 34 percent of Democrats believe immigrants make the economy worse. There is certainly fodder for a partisan realignment.

Sanders’ issue with the banks definitely hits a sore nerve. Just 26 percent of Americans express confidence in banks — a huge drop from previous decades and reflective of a general distrust of other institutions. Is this strong enough to drive voter behavior? One problem: as noted above, Americans may split over solutions — Republicans are much more likely to identify government regulations as part of problem, yet Sanders’ proposed solutions involve additional regulations and enforcement. Thus the issue tends to break along existing party lines rather than reshape them.

Strength of Existing Party AttachmentsIf Trump and Sanders share one thing, it is their outcry against “the establishment.” Yet, the candidates are hardly mirror images of one another. As Nate Silver points out, Sanders is largely working to push the Democratic Party to the left along the existing left-right spectrum, whereas Trump is “all over the place” on other issues besides immigration. In short, Trump’s supporters are more likely to scramble the existing ideological divide.

In conclusion, here are some key questions for thought:

If Hillary Clinton is nominated, how effective will she be at incorporating Bernie Sanders’ issues and supporters into the party?

Is Donald Trump’s support idiosyncratic, or is it revealing a deep political cleavage that cuts across existing party lines?

If the party system does realign, will pro-immigration Republicans feel comfortable defecting to the Democratic Party, particularly given the push by Sanders supporters to move left on other issues?

While third parties are a hard sell in any FPTP system, might the U.S. develop a smaller but potentially tie-breaking third party like the British Liberal Democrats, who also exist under winner-take-all rules? Which party would lose more supporters to the new party? Would the new system mobilize those currently not voting or voting infrequently?

It may be too soon to predict a political realignment, but at the very least, the USA’s current two-party system is certainly experiencing disruptive shocks this year.

About the author: Michael A. Smith is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Emporia State University where he teaches classes on state and local politics, campaigns and elections, political philosophy, legislative politics, and nonprofit management. Smith has contributed to multiple media outlets and is also a blogger for the 2016 MPSA conference in Chicago. Follow Smith on Twitter.

The views and opinions expressed on this blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the Midwest Political Science Association, MPSA staff, and/or other site contributors.

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The views and opinions expressed on this blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the Midwest Political Science Association, MPSA staff, and/or other site contributors.